Waiting for Years and Feeling Stuck
Obtaining official refugee and asylum documents in South Africa is a constant challenge for migrants. Imagine a queue forming outside the refugee reception office before the sun rises, with some people having travelled to the office for long hours and with others who have stood in different versions of this queue for years. And many are usually turned away and asked to come back another day. This scene is the focus of a recent study by Pineteh E. Angu, published in the African Human...
From migrant stories to Films: How young migrants discovered the power of digital storytelling
For 2 weeks, a group of young migrants, refugees and asylum seekers gathered at the holy cross hall in District Six, Cape town. Not just to learn digital skills but to find their voice in a world that is increasingly being digitalised. In an era of rapid digital transformation, access to digital tools is no longer a luxury, it is a way of living. For migrants, refugees and asylum seekers digital literacy opens door...
Feminisation of Migration: Reflections from the SIHMA Public Lecture at UWC
Migration has long been framed as a predominantly male phenomenon, shaped by narratives of labor mobility and economic survival. However, the trends and patterns of migration has shifted over the centuries with more women migrating as the economic providers of their families. Building on the relationship that the Scalabrini Institute for Human Mobility in Africa (SIHMA) has with the University of the Western Cape, and bringing non-academic setting experience, SIHMA delivered a lecture...
Necro-politics in Practice: How COVID-19 turned migrants into the “Living Dead” in South Africa (Authors: Paddington Mutekwe and Kenny Chiwarawara)
On 23 March 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a nationwide lockdown as a response to the covid-19 cases recorded in 2020 and within 18 days, infections rose to 402. The lockdown was presented as a decisive move to protect the lives of citizens. But for many migrants in South Africa the pandemic response revealed a system that quietly decides who’s lives mattered. Drawing from the study done by Mutekwe and Chiwarawara in the African Human Mobility Review
Forced Displacement in Niger
In recent years, Niger has seen a sharp rise in forced migration and internal displacement. The Atlas of African Migration an online resource developed by SIHMA, highlights how continuous violence, environmental stress, and regional instability influence mobility patterns throughout the continent. In the case of Niger, displacement trends have been hastened by climate-related disasters as well as worsening political and security conditions in nearby nations. Communities around the nation have changed as a...
NEWLY PUBLISHED ARTICLE: Gaps in the Implementation of the Non-Prima Facie Refugee Status Determination in Uganda
As millions of refugees fleeing conflict and instability, Uganda stands out as one of the friendliest nations amid an evolving global displacement environment (Frank Ahimbisibwe & Milena Belloni, 2024). The procedure of determining non-prima facie refugee status, is less common but vital component of refugee protection. The non-prima facie path requires individual asylum seekers to prove their case, often in urban context and under far more complex conditions than the prima facie approach, which quickly gives refuge...
