How unpopular policies are made: Lessons from Bangladesh, Singapore, and South Africa

By Thea de Gruchy

In December, in a post titled #Decrim: A call for evidence-based policymaking, I referred to work which I had done with Ingrid Palmary investigating the making of South Africa’s 2013 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Act. This project formed part of a larger project, funded by the Migrating out of Poverty Research Consortium , which included three case studies.

The first was on the processes and decision making which led to the creation, passing, and implementation of the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Act. The second case study was conducted by The Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit  at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, and is an analysis of the Domestic Workers Protection and Welfare Policy, which was approved by the Bangladeshi government in 2015. And the third was undertaken by the Asia Research Institute  at the National University of Singapore, and investigated the mandatory weekly day off policy for migrant domestic workers  introduced by Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower  in 2012.

The three case studies are obviously all quite different. They explore different contexts; different kinds of policy; and different political structures. However, what Ingrid and I were able to do in this working paper, which has just been published, is explore the similarities and differences that could go some way in helping us to better understand policy making in post-colonial settings.

To be clear, a lot has been written about policymaking and policy processes. However, most of this has centred on understanding policy making in European and North American contexts – for example 84 % of studies using the Advocacy Coalition Framework to analyse policy making between 1987 and 2013 were conducted in Europe and North America.

But aside from trying to address this gap in the literature, the work highlighted three important things to bear in mind when trying to advocate for policy change in these contexts.

The first is that when trying to make interventions in the policy making process, being able to either harness or successfully address ideas and panics about morality, and women, is powerful. For example, the anti-trafficking movement in South Africa was helped enormously by its ability to use pre-existing normative ideas, which many South Africans have, about sex work and the inability of women, particularly poor women of colour, to make decisions about their own lives and, particularly, sex lives. Whilst I certainly don’t agree with these ideas or this tactic, it is important to acknowledge that this is a reason that many, what I would call, socially conservative causes are able to gain traction.

Secondly, building coalitions and relationships with those involved in policy making is important. Social and political capital go a long way when trying to convince policy makers of your cause. Policy makers often have their own personal agendas – this was clear in both the case studies focused on domestic work. Policy makers were, by-and-large, also employers of domestic workers and, therefore, more sympathetic to maintaining the status quo than incurring additional personal cost through implementing policy which gave more rights to domestic workers. Building coalitions and relationships with other organisations and individuals, both locally and internationally, who agreed and sympathised with the efforts of civil society in Singapore and Bangladesh was incredibly important in the fight for the two policies.

And finally, more work needs to be done to build the trust of policy makers and the public in research, whilst insuring that they maintain a critical perspective and understanding of the limitations of the research with which they are presented. In other words, we need to improve research literacy so that people are better equipped to figure out whether the evidence and (alternative) facts with which they’ve been presented are sound (this is obviously something which many people are advocating for in the age of Trump). And, so that people, who aren’t familiar with how research and universities work, are better placed to understand what peer reviewed research is able to bring to the policy making table.

The national anti-‘Kwerekwere’ pastime

by Shezane Kirubi

“You do not look Kenyan.” 

This statement has been repeated to me in response to where I am from, too many times to count, during my time here in South Africa. Until now, I did not think that I had to fit into some stereotypical view of what a Kenyan should look like. When I first arrived in Johannesburg in July, I was excited at the opportunity to immerse myself in the vibrant cultural activities and events that South Africans frequently speak about, and for which the country is well-known.  However, within a few days of my arrival, I personally encountered the expressed displeasure, from some South Africans, at my inability to understand or speak a local language. I very soon came to realize how pervasive and sad the daily phenomenon of xenophobia is in South Africa. It is a huge obstacle to the success of regional migration in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. During my mini-excursions around the city centre, I can sincerely say that I have never felt more like a foreigner in any other country than like I have here in Johannesburg.  I find this absurd, considering that I am black and African! 

However, because I am indeed black and African, many local South Africans start with an assumption that I must be a South African and automatically start a conversation in a local dialect. It seems that some use this as a sieve-like tool to identify foreigners of other African countries. Now don’t get me wrong: I think that its amazing that South Africans have been able to hold on to their cultural identity embedded within their local dialects. However, when this is used as a discriminatory tool to exclude other people, it loses its symbolic value. In my view, xenophobic tendencies and attitudes indicate a lack any moral or rational reasoning, especially when one considers that African national borders were created by colonial governments. African foreigners seem to be so frequently harassed, seemingly to ensure that they do not ‘violate’ deeply flawed racial and ethnic purities that were artificially cobbled together under colonialism and apartheid. Therefore, despite the transition from ‘white’ authoritarian and colonial rule to democracy in 1994, prejudice and violence persist in many parts of contemporary South Africa. It seems to me that the shifts in political power that have occurred since 1994 have ushered in a range of new discriminatory practices and victims. 

Xenophobia seems to be part-and-parcel of South African technologies of nation-building, and some argue it is part of the country’s ‘culture of violence’. During my internship at the African Centre of Migration and Society (ACMS), I have observed that xenophobia in South Africa is a catchword that pops up in many conversations. It is also featured in profound and intense academic research articles and policy papers exploring the causes and its implications to the country.

Xenophobia combines the Greek words, xenos (foreign) and phobos (fear) to denote a ‘hatred for foreigners’.  It is usually characterized by a negative attitude towards foreigners which is frequently typified by dislike and fear. Most often, xenophobia is framed as an attitude; however, this is misleading in South African examples because xenophobia is not restricted to a fear or dislike of foreigners, but it also frequently results in intense tension and violence in many parts of the country.  Unfortunately, this type of violence is not only concentrated in ‘xenophobic hotspots’ where localized competition for political and economic power is sometimes a trigger; but it has been found to be more inescapable than many are ready to admit. When one reflects on South Africa’s history, one finds that for centuries nasty and derogatory labels proliferated for different groups of people. During apartheid, the word ‘kaffir’, which is now considered a taboo word, was used by ‘white’ people to describe and address dark-skinned people. Currently, the South African colloquial word ‘makwerekwere’ (plural) is used for foreigners in South Africa, specifically dark-skinned people from other African countries. However, ‘kwerekwere’ (singular) doesn’t simply mean foreigner, but includes pejorative connotations of regarding foreigners as incomprehensible and undesirable. Commentators on the etymology of the word have argued that people who first coined the word were referring to the languages of foreign-born people sounding like a meaningless “kwirikwiri” noise to speakers of the main South African languages. 

Anthropologist Francis Nyamjoh, in his recently published book #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa, strongly argues that there is a deadly national game going on in South Africa. This game involves the sport of spotting the ‘kwerekwere’, naming and shaming the Mozambican ‘shangaan’, taming and maiming the Nigerian, stealing and looting from the Somali businessperson, exploiting the Zimbabwean waitress, and abusing the Basotho domestic worker. The purpose of this national hobby, he argues, is to ensure that foreigners do not invade ‘sacred borders’ or violate what he calls the imagined “borders of intimacies”. 

In trying to explain such high levels of discrimination, some scholars have attributed South African xenophobia to learned behaviour acquired during the experience of Apartheid. Another frequent explanation uses critiques of the national government’s service delivery record. With regards to this, the rate of socio-economic inequality in the country has been pinpointed as the greatest scourge implicated in xenophobic violence which has frequently occurred in the informal margins of the formal economy. Many locals hold perceptions that foreign nationals compete with the poorest South Africans to eke out menial livelihoods. 

Additionally, South Africa’s stringent immigration policies have aggravated the problem. Unfortunately, this has tremendously affected the country’s refugee and asylum system. Research findings have shown that refugees and immigrants often state that they are sometimes prepared to accept very low-paying jobs because they do not have easy access to social protection in South Africa; and because many don’t have the ‘safety net’ of an extended family that they may have in their home countries. Ironically, the Department of Home Affairs frequently institutionalizes xenophobia via discriminatory laws and practices against migrants from other African countries, while at the same time it is frequently stated that the country is stymied by a severe shortfall of skilled workers. Black foreigners in South Africa are often portrayed as parasites sponging off public services for their own selfish survival. Many South Africans seem to indulge in a political rhetoric of panic which likes to spread perceptions that South Africa’s current socio-economic problems have been caused by a so-called ‘influx’ of African migrants.  

In a new project, ACMS, and a tech company iAfrikan  have collaborated with a number of partners to set up a platform to monitor xenophobic threats and violence. Similar to the Ushahidi crowdsourcing platform which was created after the 2007/08 post-election violence in Kenya, Xenowatch aims to track all forms of xenophobic threats and attacks on people and property in South Africa, and includes a website containing interactive mapping and visualization based on reports received. The platform allows anyone to easily and anonymously report threats of violence, past attacks, or active mobilization using a free SMS (text message), an email, or by entering a report on the website. When I reflect on the efficacy and success of the Kenyan Ushahidi platform to provide timely and detailed information on any possibility of election-related violence in the 2013 General Elections; I think Xenowatch may be a step in the right direction. 

The prevalence of the stereotypical views of foreign-born people that many South Africans hold onto is neither innocent nor accidental. Similarly, I find that it is no laughing matter. While there is a popular contemporary emphasis on stabilizing the continent of Africa and bringing peace to its various regions, in my view, xenophobia contradicts the ideals of nationalism and Pan-Africanism, that many argue are the pathway to African progress and socio-economic development. As Africans we need to get ourselves out of this self-hating conundrum by letting go of truncated and static notions of citizenship or belonging. The Africa we have today would not have existed and cannot exist without immigration and emigration. 

Zimbabwean migrants and vehicle-based remitting patterns: Reflections in the International Month of Family Remittances

By Kudzai Vanyoro

This month 13 July 2016 was the International day of Family Remittances. Therefore I reflected on vehicle networks as remittance channels for Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa, particularly the cross-border bus networks. I also sought to find out reasons why these networks were preferred by some migrants.

On 8 July, my cousin-sister asked me to assist her by sending money to her parents in Zimbabwe. After asking which money sending agency she preferred, she informed me that I had to send it by bus. This entailed going to a regional bus terminus in Braamfontein in the Johannesburg CBD. This terminus is popularly known to Zimbabweans and others as “Power House”.

I got into the station at around midday fearing that the buses, which take the bus route to her home, had all departed already. I was welcomed by loud bus engine roars and hoots, ticket-advertising chants from bus conductors, and partially blocked paths between tightly spaced buses. “This is actually a remitting channel for some Zimbabwean migrants,” I thought to myself. I was a bit nervous because this channel is based on trust and has a lot of risks1.

Memory took me back to how the term ‘remittances’ had been defined in migration workshops I had previously attended:  a process of sending money or goods for payment or gift purposes.  Through further research, I found out that Zimbabweans in South Africa remit 58% of the total remittances from South Africa into the rest of the SADC region,2 and that, although regional bus terminuses were more often than not adjacent to online money-sending facilities, “The use of ‘omalaitshas’, personal couriers, relatives and spouses and other religious networks are noteworthy forms of remitting income and goods”.3 So at Power House, my thoughts wandered about in my head as I searched for a bus company with “decent -looking” individuals to whom I could entrust my sister’s money.

“Why do you opt to remit via road networks instead of using institutionalised money-transfer agents or freight companies?” I asked my sister later that day.

“My parents prefer taking money or groceries from the bus. That way they can petition the driver of my wellbeing and in some cases, hand him my favourite traditional foods to bring back to me,” she responded.

She further explained that the presence of semi-professional remittance agents in this channel also allowed for flexibility and innovation. At the end of the day, her parents would receive money and she would also receive culturally significant foods which kept her in touch with home. So I concluded that this channel facilitated a reciprocal flow of remittances between migrant families, gratifying the income and survival needs of those at home and the nostalgic or cultural needs of those abroad4.

Another task I had to endure on this particular day was that of negotiating charges with the bus personnel who were willing to deliver the money. A standard A4 counter book was handed to me, into which I was supposed to fill in personal details of the sending and receiving ends. Sections appeared in this order: Name of sender, contact number of sender, name of receiver, contact details of receiver, worth of money or goods sent, and money paid for service. The figure payable for the transportation of money could only be determined through ‘rational’ negotiations with the conductor. After negotiating and paying a reasonable amount, I came to the conclusion that remitting through the bus networks was much more affordable and had non-fixed, negotiable rates, unlike the more formalised agents whose rates are fixed and non-negotiable, this channel seemed cost effective. I was also told that frequency in sending through the same bus services led to cordial relationships between transporters and senders. Benefits included loyalty-driven ‘discounts’ when sending and, in some cases, free sending of small gadgets such as phones. This is crucial to migrants, given that sub-Saharan Africa is the most expensive region when it comes to the costs of agent-based remitting with South Africa having the highest costs. So I could see that the bus service remittance route is much more affordable, and fits the budgets of migrants and their families a lot better.

As my sister had explained, another factor influencing her remitting channel decisions had to do with her parents’ location and preferences.  Due to the absence of agent offices in their rural Masvingo area in Zimbabwe, the bus proved the only available and convenient channel; not to mention the fact that her parents who are older recipients of remittances would rather spare themselves the trouble of using pins and codes to collect money. 

All in all I observed that the decision on which channel to remit through was not solely influenced by the migrants themselves, and that the non-migrant families also play an active role in deciding preferred channels. As is the case of my sister, who chooses the bus for its ‘affordability and flexibility’, I am sure that there are other migrants who do the same. It may not be the most reliable of channels, seeing that the transactions are based merely on ‘trust’ but it seems to work for her and other migrants who might hold similar beliefs.

Migrating out of Poverty Research Consortium conducted both quantitative and qualitative  researches on Zimbabwean migrants and remittances namely, Migrating out of poverty in Zimbabwe and Migration's effects on sending communities: Zimbabwe case study . Remittances were also discussed by Dr. Lothar Smith and Dr. Zaheera Jinnah in a “What does translocality mean and why does it matter” workshop held at ACMS earlier this year.

Kudzai Vanyoro is a Migrating out of Poverty  Research Communications intern based at the University of the Witwatersrand African Centre for Migration & Society  in Johannesburg.

Follow him on Twitter @kudzaivanyoro1

1 Dzingirai, V. Egger, E.M. Landau, L. Litchfield, J. Mutopo, P. and Nyikahadzoi, K. (2015;7) Migrating out of poverty in Zimbabwe, accessed on http://migratingoutofpoverty.dfid.gov.uk/files/file.php?name=wp29-dzingirai-et-al-2015-migrating-out-of-poverty-in-zimbabwe.pdf&site=354 on 11 July, 2016.

2 Finmark Trust (2015) The South Africa- SADC Remittance Channel, accessed on www.southernafricatrust.org/.../2015/.../finmark-trust-remittances-from-south-africa-t on 10 July 2016

3 Dzingirai, V. Egger, E.M. Landau, L. Litchfield, J. Mutopo, P. and Nyikahadzoi, K. (2015) Migrating out of poverty in Zimbabwe, accessed on http://migratingoutofpoverty.dfid.gov.uk/files/file.php?name=wp29-dzingirai-et-al-2015-migrating-out-of-poverty-in-zimbabwe.pdf&site=354 on 11 July, 2016.

4 Remittances: Cultural Connections and Diaspora Challenges (January 4, 2016), accessed on

 http://www.stabroeknews.com/2016/features/01/04/remittances-cultural-connections-diaspora-challenges/ on 12 July 2016.

Migration in southern Africa – a visit to the City of Migrants

by Eva-Maria Egger

I spent three weeks in July and August this year in South Africa visiting researchers at the University of Cape Town and the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg as part of an exchange program funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). It gave me the opportunity to work with the data from the Migrating out of Poverty household survey collected in Zimbabwe earlier this year, while I was in the region which many of the migrants in the survey chose as their destination. But around this academic experience I also had the chance to see the two largest cities of the country and meet people who live and chose to live in them.

When you go to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg you can see historical documents illustrating the history and presence of immigration to Johannesburg and South Africa from all over the world. Johannesburg, the City of Gold, is also the City of Migrants. In the past the discovery of gold attracted many people from within and outside the country’s borders to come to Johannesburg and build a new life. Today vast economic opportunities attract the migrants. Not only can you see the factories and office buildings of various international companies in the city, but also a wide range of African shops run by people from all over the continent. This international mix, in combination with high unemployment among South Africans, was the backdrop to the violent xenophobic outbreaks after the World Cup in 2010. However, the City of Johannesburg and many academic and civil society actors are determined to change these attitudes.

Migrating out of Poverty partner the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) is partaking in ‘myth busting’ projects. All around the city you can hear stories about buses full of pregnant Zimbabwean women arriving daily in Johannesburg to give birth and stay in South Africa. There is little truth to such tales, but belief in them is strong, and politicians do not shy away from feeding into anti-immigrant attitudes similar to those we read daily in European news about ‘benefit tourists’. On one day I witnessed these attitudes first hand. I had visited a social project for children and youth in a township of Pretoria with a social worker from Rwanda. She has built this project together with a friend of mine. She and her family have lived in South Africa for more than 10 years now. We took a minibus back to the city and the driver started speaking in Afrikaans to me until we explained that I was just visiting and did not speak Afrikaans. His reaction was rather cold when asking me where I was from and what I was doing in South Africa, but still polite. Then, however, he turned to my Rwandan companion and asked her with a very suspicious undertone, where she was from and what she was doing in South Africa. I could feel the tension in the air, she felt threatened. So she replied with a lie, saying that she, too, was just visiting with me.

On the other hand, the City of Johannesburg is actively seeking to improve the situation of immigrants, be it international or internal, unskilled or skilled. The Business Union of South Africa is actively involved in anti-xenophobia campaigns, because businesses are looking for workers with skills which often they cannot find among South African workers. Many foreign business people I talked to told me that they were eager to hire South Africans, but in the end hired someone from Zimbabwe or other countries, because they were just better equipped with the skills the employer needed. Thus, the city recognizes that the integration efforts have to aim equally at internal migrants from rural parts of the country as well as at international immigrants to give them access to services and legal working opportunities.

Around 85% of migrants entering South Africa come from the Southern African Development Community. Most taxi drivers in Johannesburg I talked to came from different parts of the country or the continent. This puts the European media news stories on the ‘masses’ of immigrants from Africa with their suggestion that Europe is the dream destination for migrants from the African continent, into perspective. To me it seems that South Africa is the number one destination for many African migrants and the city of Johannesburg alone welcomes thousands of immigrants from within and outside the country every month. As the Mayor says, “This is not merely a challenge, but also an opportunity”.

And many people see and take this opportunity. Numerous artists, designers, musicians choose Jozi as their place of inspiration. Long ignored and run-down areas of the city are re-discovered and re-populated by businesses. Kids and youth speak at least three languages because they grow up surrounded by people from different parts of the country or the continent. Students at the famous University of Witwatersrand come from all over the country and the world. Many also hope to return to their origins and make a difference there, using the skills they learned and building on the networks they established in the City of Migrants.

Johannesburg, City of Migrants

Sources:

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-11-07-on-the-move-south-africa-and-migration/#.Vf7wUN9VhBc

https://www.enca.com/south-africa/migration-joburg-should-be-opportunity-mayor

http://www.joburg.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6826:migration-under-the-spotlight&catid=88&Itemid=266

http://www.joburg.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5686:migration-discussed&catid=88&Itemid=340

Eva Maria Egger is a doctoral candidate in Economics at the University of Sussex, funded by the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium. Findings from the household survey that Eva-Maria worked on are published in the new working paper, Migrating out of Poverty in Zimbabwe, by Vupenyu Dzingirai, Eva-Maria Egger, Loren Landau, Julie Litchfield, Patience Mutopo and Kefasi Nyikahadzoi, which is available on the Migrating out of Poverty website.

The ‘Art’ of Research Communication

by Kuda Vanyoro

From my experience at the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) and engagement with literature by other writers who have faced similar, it is clear that at times research findings and evidence on nationally contested issues like migration may prove the positive contributions of migration to development and poverty eradication prematurely, when the audience in question is not ready to hear the positions that researchers take. In other words, there may be socially entrenched stereotypical perceptions of migrants, as is the case in South Africa, which lead the recipients of the message to ignore it. In such instances, targeting a policy audience alone when communicating research findings and evidence is insufficient to impact or influence policy because of regressive societal attitudes which may also be held by policy makers.

 

There then arises, today more than ever, the need to tactfully disseminate research findings in a more decentralised, artistic and aesthetical manner. This may involve targeting a ‘popular culture’ non-policy audience through art and other forms of eye-candy such as film, exhibitions and storytelling in order to drive the facts home. The success of this process depends on creativity on the part of the research communicators tasked with coming up with a means of enticing and attracting this non-policy audience. Where this drive is led by the sole purpose of myth-busting and de-construction of shared societal misconceptions and stereotypes of migrants, such creativity may yield positive results, even in spite of the danger of further subjecting those whom we hope to emancipate with the research, to further stereotypes, which is a common pitfall.

 

Research communication is therefore in my view both a profession and an art. A good example of tackling a sensitive issue successfully is an ongoing research project at the ACMS titled Volume 44, which is a collaborative research project on migrant sex workers in the cities of Johannesburg and Musina. The South African National Aids Council has estimated that there are 153,000 sex workers in South Africa. A large proportion of these are located in Gauteng, the smallest but most populous province in South Africa, in which both Johannesburg and Pretoria are located. Sex work is popularly perceived as migrant dominated, and work conducted by Marlise Richter and Jo Vearey based on interviews with 1636 sex workers found that just over 85% of sex workers were migrants. Of these 39% were internal migrants and 46.3% were cross-border migrants. Volume 44 builds on a 2010 project which sought to highlight the experiences of migrant women involved in sex work within inner city Johannesburg through visual medium in the exhibition ‘Working the City’. At the time of writing, Volume 44 has staged 3 exhibitions: one in Johannesburg 21 May – 27 June 2014; a second in Amsterdam 25-28 June 2014; and the last one in Bogota in 14-19 July 2014. The exhibition was highly visual and its Johannesburg launch, for which I organised the publicity, attracted an attendance of nearly one hundred people from all walks of life: young students, media professionals, sex workers and academics.

Sex work in South Africa is not legal, and activist voices are calling for its decriminalization in a bid to combat the lack of access to health care, stigma, discrimination and criminalisation under the Sexual Offences Act faced by those engaged in it. While both migrant and local sex workers face stigma, particularly at grassroots levels, migrant sex workers are viewed with the utmost hostility. Therefore, it is only reasonable to assume that advocacy for the protection of sex workers in South Africa can only yield tangible policy results once social attitudes that result in stigma have been eliminated, or at least sensitised, from below. 

In the coming years, researchers will need to learn to adopt popular packaging for their research communication if their voice is to be heard beyond the ivory towers of universities. This is especially true with contentious topics like migration where research positions are often not what receiving communities and policy makers may want to hear. Volume 44 is an attempt to use photography, real-life narratives, audio and other forms of exhibitory art to get ordinary people thinking in a different way about contested issues. The art, complementing the research findings about migrant sex work, can provide potent weapons to communicate unwelcome research messages for positive evidence-based policy making, social transformation and other envisaged policy outcomes.

Visitors to the Johannesburg Volume 44 exhibition view '"Letter to a young sex worker" - a wall of letters written by the project participants'

 

Kudakwashe Vanyoro has concluded his Research, Communications and Outreach Internship at the African Centre for Migration and Society(ACMS), University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), funded by the Migrating out of Poverty Research Consortium. Read Kuda's profile.

Survival in the City of Gold

By Kuda Vanyoro

 

I have never ceased to be fascinated by Johannesburg and the many experiences it has offered me throughout my internship. There are many sides to this beautiful city but not all are delightful. In my opinion, Johannesburg is a place of opportunity where people of different cultures, races and nationalities converge in search of better lives, thus its epithet Egoli (city of gold). In the broad Johannesburg space internal migrants (as presented in my last blog) and international migrants co-exist. Each migration trajectory brings with it varied effects on the culture of the city, which becomes one of struggle for survival. Both internal and foreign migrants are driven by the desire to get employed - formally or informally - in an attempt to extract financial resources for a better livelihood in the city and for remittances to send back home. Stiff competition among internal migrants for these limited resources which are then extended to foreign migrants builds up, resulting in a system that marginalises those who are less skilled and those who demand higher wages from employers. So it is often the locals who suffer in this search for gold that the city promises.

This complex system results in wage-labour conflicts and competition, leaving those who lose out with no alternative but to survive the hard way. This gets me to the central focus of this blog: crime in inner-city Johannesburg. The views expressed here are more of an opinion than an expert analysis, and emerge from my personal experience as I try to draw out lessons and key themes related to the migration and poverty field. On two occasions during my short stay in Johannesburg thus far, I have been a victim of crime. The first encounter was a random amateur mugging on the sidewalk, and the other one was a more professional mugging in the early hours along the streets of Doornfontein. My brushes with crime in the city are, of course, not  unique. I urge the reader not to sympathise with me: I have come to terms with these misfortunes as part of my internship experience and have nothing to shed tears about.

The understanding I have arrived at from my experience is that migration for work in a city like Johannesburg is functional, creating a fairly equitable system of subsistence, better livelihood and economic development in South Africa and the region as a whole. I drove this point home in my previous blog.  However, not everyone benefits. Some are left out due to other variables which are somewhat more academic than I have scope for, but one factor is poor government policy. Most of the migrants who are less well served by the formal labour system turn to informal work such as vending. But what happens to the least well served who are not educationally or skilfully equipped or who simply lack the will or capacity to be entrepreneurs? I am of the conviction that some of these people either return to their original homes, or alternatively they turn to crime, which is a male dominated occupation in this city. Contrary to the claim that external migrants are responsible for most of the crime in Johannesburg, both internal and international migrants are involved,. Even nationals that migrate to the city for better lives may be vulnerable to falling into criminality because the cheaper labour and better skills that foreign migrants offer leads to some locals failing to find jobs. Government policies often ignore such realities, and in the process overlook a vicious cycle that renders South African society hostile and unsafe for everyone. This demonstrates the pertinence of a solid and realistic migration and labour policy for the broader society and everyone’s well-being in the fight for the eradication of poverty.

My unfortunate experiences awakened my curiosity to find out the rational dynamics around migration and crime. I did not manage to talk to a lot of people involved in crime due to the issue’s sensitivity and the lack of a clear cut research agenda, but an informal chat with Mark (not his real name), a local Xhosa man who stays in Berea, was enough to convince me that sometimes crime was a response to the frustrations of unemployment. Although not xenophobic, Mark did attribute his joblessness to the influx of foreign migrants, but not exclusively. He was aware of the government’s central role in job creation, but he alluded to the fact that he had turned to crime (“other means” of livelihood) because of the huge pressures brought to bear on the labour market by both internal and foreign migrants. Maybe it was just his poor excuse for his unruly and deviant behaviour, but nonetheless it should not be totally disregarded.

Again, such mundane stories of migration in a context of poverty pose more questions than answers. I am not aiming to provide answers but to call for critical thinking around the social dynamics of migration and migration’s adverse effects in the absence of efficient and real policies meant for real people. There is much that can be done to alleviate poverty in Southern Africa and one of these things is development of a proper migration and labour policy, without which the poor will continue to suffer the adverse effects of crime and other social ills. Until such a time, the search for a better life and the promise of gold in the city will remain highly contested and unduly competitive.

Johannesburg by night - a site of "other means" of livelihoods

Kudakwashe Vanyoro is the current Research, Communications and Outreach Intern at the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS), University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), funded by the Migrating out of Poverty Research Consortium. Read Kuda's profile.

A Life on the Move

By Kuda Vanyoro

I embarked for Limpopo on 12^th April on a personal journey to visit my grandparents. At the back of my mind I was cognisant of the fact that many far-reaching lessons had to be drawn from this first time experience. Being a province situated at the North Eastern corner of South Africa and sharing borders with Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique; I knew that the journey to Limpopo was going to be a long and rough one. 400 kilometres of pothole infested tar was not a joke, especially while sitting in the back of my sister’s truck.

 

We left Johannesburg at around 10:00am and during the drive I delighted myself to a healthy chat with my brother. Both of us had expectations of what rural Limpopo looked and felt like; imaginations we had created for ourselves from the stories of witchcraft and backwardness we had constantly heard about the province. I pictured the surreal images of goblins running around and a dense population of poverty stricken people, which was not the reality. We had barely driven for 30 minutes when we stopped. My sister, who was driving, had not informed us that we were also going to pick up our aunt who lives in Mamelodi Pretoria, situated in the Northern parts of Gauteng Province. Her house was one of the conventional tin shacks that most South African rural migrants are accustomed to. She gave us a warm welcome and repeatedly made reference to her shack as her “beautiful city home” and how we should always feel free to visit. This was, after all, home to her, I thought. She had a lot of possessions that she wanted us to load into the truck and take to Limpopo with us. She also owns a house in Limpopo and seasonally she returns home after accumulating some income and new possessions. These possessions included plastic chairs, carpets, a table and sacks full of all sorts of things. The tin shacks were indeed small so it only made sense to send these things back home where they were most needed and utilised.

 

Having loaded the back of the truck, we squeezed ourselves back in. It was quite clear to me that this was going to be an uncomfortable journey. My aunt also joined us at the back with her husband, to my uttermost surprise, given the little space available. Despite this, we made our way to the freeway to Limpopo, which we then deviated from and headed onto a bumpier strip road after 40 kilometres of driving. Along the way, we compared city life to the rural areas and Aunt Maggie was very open and forthcoming about her migratory life. “The reason I carry these things back home is because my neighbour is a thief”, she explained out. I laughed at the thought but her seriousness constrained my laughter. She really meant it and the only reason she was moving all these possessions was because it was unsafe to leave them in the tin shack. This nomadic behaviour was the story of her life: she would do this every single time she thought of visiting home; carry her belongings and go. I was shell shocked at the very idea of such a life but such was hers. All this sacrifice was in the name of migrating for work and sending remittances to the family back home.

At around 4pm, we were neared Limpopo and now I could clearly see that my idea of the place was far from reality. There was a well built taxi rank opposite the main grocery shops, just along the Johannesburg highway. The only difference was that I could now see the cows and smell the countryside air, fed by the fresh scent of cow dung. The sign “Welcome to Zebediela” was a reminder of where we were now. On our short drive to the house, Maggie’s husband Sipho began to explain to us how stands and houses were actually more affordable here than in the cities. Mostly they would sell for as low as 1000 Rand (£56.39) to local people. The houses were so big and spacious that for a moment I even forgot where I was. Finally we arrived at their house.

 

We offloaded the truck after being warmly welcomed by Aunt Maggie’s last born daughter and the grandchildren she took care of, then we went into the house. It was an electrified house with 8 rooms and 2 garages. There was also running water and almost everything one would expect to find in a city home. This was very different from the lifestyle in Johannesburg to which I was accustomed, especially the vast amount of space available. Johannesburg was home to more people than space but this was a very different scenario. I even wondered why anyone would leave such a beautiful house for the hustle and squalor of Johannesburg and Pretoria. What shocked me the more was the juxtaposition between the tin shack Aunt Maggie lived in Pretoria and the beautiful house I was sitting in at that moment. She owned it and all the possessions we had come with was offloaded and put to good use in the house.

 

Most of my questions were answered by our visit to one of my Granny’s houses. It was there that I realised that the reason people migrated from these rural areas to the city was that here, there was no economy to talk about. People did not farm at all, due to the dry and hot climate in the province, not to mention the infertile land. There were not enough resources to sustain rural life, coupled by the non-industrious environment. Only a few people with entrepreneurial skills managed to open vegetable markets in the taxi rank while some worked in the bars and bottle stores, not forgetting those that took to sex work. But all these businesses heavily relied on remittances sent from the city for their survival. People were therefore left with no alternative but to migrate and seek monetary income elsewhere.

 

Interestingly, not all members of the family migrate. Some (usually the grandparents) still remain to take care of the grandchildren, and the youth (25-40 years of age) are the ones who mostly go to the city in search of work. This I concluded from mere observation and some input from my newly found friend Wellington, who is also a migrant worker. These migrants often invest more in their rural homes than in the city by sending back remittances in order to increase their material wealth, societal prestige and livelihood. This accounts for why Aunt Maggie prefers living in a shack and forking out as little as 300 rand (£16.91per month) for rent in the city, while utilising much of her income on extending and maintaining her house back home. I also noticed how food prices are much lower than those of the city, which makes Maggie’s income much more useful at home than in the city.

 

Aunt Maggie’s story is not unique, neither is it representative of the whole South African rural-urban migrants. I am, however, convinced that it is enough to give us a sense of how rural migrants behave in order to improve their lives in a cultural as well as family context. The context of family, in this case, is an important one since most migration decisions are made with them in mind and not in isolation. Gender roles and other demographic factors also contribute to who goes and who stays at home and are often reinforced in the family institution. It would be interesting to carry out an ethnographic study of the Limpopo people in order to capture some of the cultural considerations that migrants take before moving from the rural areas to the city and how these also shape expectations for remittances back home. The story also exposes the benefits of rural-urban migration as a means of providing for a better life back home, without which poverty would prevail. This is migrating out of poverty in practice, life on the move.

*Kudakwashe Vanyoro is the current Research, Communications and Outreach Intern at the African Centre for Migration and Society, University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa), funded by the Migrating out of Poverty Research Consortium. Read Kuda's profile.