Nearly 180,000 Zimbabweans remain legal in South Africa for another 12 months after South Africa’s high court ruled a termination of the Zimbabwean special permit unlawful. 

“We want to be legal in South Africa, but we don’t know how,” Tsitsi (37) says, who works as a caregiver in Cape Town’s city centre, where she lives with her husband and three children. In 2008 she fled Zimbabwe by herself, just before the special exemption permit was implemented. To get to Cape Town from her hometown Chitungwiza, she took a bus and bribed the immigration officers at the border. She received asylum on arrival.

Victor (32), who works at a bakery in Cape Town, also left Zimbabwe to make a better life for himself. “We had elections in 2008, where I think a lot of people were then killed with the reruns and everything that was happening.” When he arrived at South Africa’s Eastern Cape in 2009, he received the special exemption permit that had just been implemented that same year at the height of the socio-economic crisis in Zimbabwe. The permit was set to be terminated at the end of June 2023 after 14 years.

On June 28th 2023, only two days before the termination would have taken effect, the minister’s decision was overruled by South Africa’s high court following an appeal by human rights-focused Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF). Along with changing narratives from the government, the HSF’s appeal faced interventions by vigilante anti-immigration groups such as Operation Dudula.

The situation in Zimbabwe

 “When I left Zimbabwe, that was the time of the dollarization when we started buying a loaf of bread for 1 trillion [Zimbabwean dollars],” Victor remembers. Tsitsi’s neighbour, an opposition supporter, fell victim to the oppressive regime in 2008 when she was ostensibly taken by ZANU-PF for days: “We don’t know what happened to her. But when she came out, we would see her with bruises. We knew she had come from a beating.” Tsitsi and Victor are two examples of many Zimbabweans who fled in hope of a better life during the zenith of Zimbabwe’s crisis under then President Robert Mugabe (ZANU-PF). Mugabe, who appeared on Zimbabwe’s political stage in the 1980s, led the country into strikes over food shortages that resulted in hyperinflation of 230,000,000%.

The implementation of the special permit in 2009 followed a time of crisis in Zimbabwe, during which many citizens fled to South Africa. Christopher Fisher, Senior Legal Researcher at HSF, says: “The people were direct victims of either political violence or they were suffering from the lack of opportunities that came following the political violence because the economy shrunk, jobs dried up, and people were just desperate.”

While the South African government argues that the situation in Zimbabwe has improved, a report by Human Rights Watch cites “abductions, torture, and arbitrary arrests” under the Mnangagwa administration (ZANU-PF). The Department of Home Affairs (DHA), who has not responded to any requests for comment for this article, states in the court documents: “The fact that Zimbabwe may not have improved to a degree that HSF finds acceptable is not a ground of review.” But as Fisher argues, “The impact is going to be disastrous for many of these people”. The corrupt socio-political landscape has resulted in increased inflation in the triple digits in 2022, with a large percentage of the population living in extreme poverty. “I don’t think there are any human rights in Zimbabwe… If we were allowed to vote freely, ZANU-PF would not be there,” Tsitsi says. 

To be Made Illegal

At the end of 2021, South Africa’s Cabinet announced the termination of the special permit  – a decision that was preceded by a historic loss in votes for the ANC in key regions around South Africa. Large numbers of voters had gone over to parties that pushed for anti-foreign legislation. Many South African parties, including the ruling ANC, have since shifted their strategies to a “South Africans first” mentality. The next general elections will be held in South Africa in 2024, in which Operation Dudula intends to contest.

Other key arguments for the minister’s decision for termination are the government’s limited budget and South Africa’s increasing unemployment rate. The latter was later amended, with the DHA stating the minister did not argue Zimbabweans were to blame for the unemployment rates and that it was incorrect “that his decisions were motivated by xenophobia.” 

With often limited qualifications and the DHA’s visa processing backlog, ZEP holders have little hope of obtaining other visas to remain legal in South Africa without special permits. The high court’s ruling allows them to legally remain in the republic for another 12 months, granting them a “fair process” with public hearings and written comments under the Promotion of Administration Justice Act (PAJA).

Even with the minister’s decision overturned, fear over xenophobia remains for Zimbabweans in South Africa. Zandile Dabula, founding member and national secretary of Operation Dudula, says: “They need to go and fix their own countries. They can’t stay here…We need to start prioritizing our own South Africans.”

Hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants live in uncertainty over whether their permits will be formally extended by the minister after the 12 months extension. “What am I going to do in Zimbabwe? Truly, there is nothing,” Tsitsi says.

To ensure the anonymity of the Zimbabweans in this article, their names have been changed.

Photo: Zimbabwe tells Robert Mugabe to go! Solidarity March, 18 Nov 2017, by Zimbabwean Eyes. Copyright: PUBLIC DOMAIN MARK 1.0 UNIVERSAL.