Jo Vearey, PhD
Urgent measures are required to ensure we include all foreign migrants – not only tourists and international travellers from high- and medium-risk countries – in our response to Covid-19. There needs to be assurance that, regardless of their current documentation status, no foreign migrant will face any sanctions when engaging with state authorities, including when seeking healthcare or being included in contact tracing. Without this, our efforts to reduce the spread of Covid-19 will fail.
Whether the apparent lack of consideration of foreign migrants is a result of their continued exclusion in public health planning, or due to the initial cases of Covid-19 identified in South Africa being imported from outside of the African continent, is irrelevant. Perhaps the tables have turned and recognition of the ways in which international tourist travel can be associated with the spread of infectious diseases has been brought to light, challenging and perhaps even silencing, at least for now, the pervasive blaming of foreign migrants for the health challenges faced in South Africa.
5th March 2020 - Channel Africa, radio programme Following a Court order to vacate the church and the central business district they have been occupying over the last four months, the foreigners then moved on to occupy a police station and the surroundings of this law enforcement facility. The government and several NGO’S have been… Continue reading Cape Town Refugee Crisis: Channel Africa
An effective response to South Africa’s coronavirus outbreak is an inclusive response.
This keeps migrants safe and it keeps everyone in South Africa healthy. It reduces the need for people to cross the border through irregular routes that may not only be dangerous but do not have the healthcare workers needed to screen people for the new virus.
Effective management of this public health crisis will involve all of us. This would truly be a case of, what Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi recently called, “international solidarity”.
Migration in Africa CHANNEL AFRICA | AFRICAN DIALOGUE https://embed.iono.fm/epi/790510 Only twenty-percent of migrants actually leave the African continent, according to the African Union. More people move from the Horn of Africa to southern Africa than those crossing the Sahara to north Africa to reach Europe. There is even more movement within West Africa, a region that historically… Continue reading Migration in Africa: Channel Africa (SABC)
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