SACBC Workgroup on Migrants and Refugees
In 2018, the Workgroup’s meeting, organized by the South Africa Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) Office for Migrants and Refugees, took place in Johannesburg on the 20th of February and the 17th of September. Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees within the conference territory is coordinated by a multidisciplinary Team, including SIHMA, Jesuit Refugee Service, Caritas, The Catholic Parliamentary Office, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Directors of Pastoral care of South African Dioces and various refugee consortiums. The...
Press Review February 2019
NATIONAL COVERAGE South Africans are not welcoming to foreign nationals, summit hears Iol.co.za 20 February 2019 JOHANNESBURG – The South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) on Tuesday held a summit at the Constitution Hill to explore if South Africans were welcoming to refugees as stipulated in the White Paper. South Africa’s asylum and refugee system is under...
Birth Certificate and Access to Education – Round Table
On the 27th of February, this Round Table provided many people and organisations working with undocumented minors residing in South Africa with the opportunity to share about their situation and their Constitutional right to education. Unfortunately, we assist too many cases of children who have been refused permission to attend schools because they do not have a birth certificate. This Round Table, which was co-hosted between SIHMA and CPLO and funded by CEI, was addressed by Ms Sindi...
Roundtable on "Manufacturing Illegality"
On the 5th of March, CPLO organized an event to discuss the report on Manufacturing Illegality, written by SIHMA researchers and funded by Hanns Seidel Foundation. The report explores the development of new asylum seeker policy aimed at curtailing asylum seekers’ right to work in South Africa, whilst they away the finalisation of claims, and what the country can learn from similar policy developments in the European Union. The event was addressed by the three co-authors/researchers of the report:...
My experience at SIHMA - Licia
I studied for an MA in Advanced Migration Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and applied for this internship with SIHMA to fulfil my study requirements. I was thrilled to have this opportunity because I believed, and I still do, that European institutions focus a lot on migration towards Europe while they tend to disregard migration flows in the rest of the world, especially South-South migration. Thanks to my internship with SIHMA, I was able...
Press Review January 2019
NATIONAL COVERAGE Could South Africa cope with a Migration Crisis like that of Syria? dailymaverick.co.za 18 January 2019 The scenario of a Zimbabwean migration may be the result of the current crisis in that nation. If it happens, is South Africa’s government ready to respond? Have they drawn from the lessons of the Syrian catastrophe? Full report: https://bit.ly/2MPn0Q8 #StopXenophobia in all its guises