{"id":26149,"date":"2019-12-15T17:17:21","date_gmt":"2019-12-15T17:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/?p=26149"},"modified":"2020-02-01T17:27:10","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T17:27:10","slug":"how-south-africa-has-squeezed-options-for-migrants-over-25-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/how-south-africa-has-squeezed-options-for-migrants-over-25-years\/","title":{"rendered":"How South Africa has squeezed options for migrants over 25 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <span class=\"fn author-name\">Christine Hobden <\/span><\/p>\n<p>There is a widely recognised dissonance between the progressive, inclusive vision of South Africa\u2019s constitution and xenophobia experienced by foreign nationals across South Africa. It can be tempting to describe this tension as one between good, inclusive laws and bad, xenophobic citizens.<\/p>\n<p>But my recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/02589346.2019.1691813\">investigation<\/a> into South Africa\u2019s citizenship law reveals that this is far too simplistic an explanation. My research shows that reduced access to citizenship in South Africa is shaped at the legislative level as well as through government\u2019s implementation strategies \u2013 or the lack thereof.<\/p>\n<p>I argue that this trend reveals hidden agendas within the country\u2019s government structures to what I call \u201cshrink South Africa\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>This is not what the founders of a democratic South Africa envisaged. The 1995 South African Citizenship Act replaced apartheid legislation. The new law was drawn up in line with the country\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov.za\/legislation\/constitution\/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf\">constitution<\/a>, which provided for a common citizenship for all. It thus extensively widened the scope of free and equal citizenship to all citizens.<\/p>\n<p>This initial post-apartheid legislation was generous in scope. It provided means to acquire \u2013 or reacquire \u2013 citizenship for those who had lost or failed to acquire their citizenship due to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sahistory.org.za\/article\/history-apartheid-south-africa\">apartheid<\/a> policy. Examples included some who had lived in exile, who were forced to travel illegally, migrant workers, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sahistory.org.za\/article\/homelands\">\u201chomeland\u201d<\/a> residents.<\/p>\n<p>In the intervening years the act has been amended three times \u2013 in 2004, 2007 and 2010. With a few notable exceptions, these amendments have systematically reduced access to citizenship.<\/p>\n<p>What happened?<\/p>\n<p>Read further: <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-south-africa-has-squeezed-options-for-migrants-over-25-years-128257\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-south-africa-has-squeezed-options-for-migrants-over-25-years-128257<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Christine Hobden There is a widely recognised dissonance between the progressive, inclusive vision of South Africa\u2019s constitution and xenophobia experienced by foreign nationals across South Africa. It can be tempting to describe this tension as one between good, inclusive laws and bad, xenophobic citizens. But my recent investigation into South Africa\u2019s citizenship law reveals [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[499],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classifiee","region-afrique-du-sud-2","type-articles-de-presse","item-year-660","item-theme-acquisition-de-la-nationalite","item-theme-acquisition-par-les-enfants","item-theme-nationalite-et-des-refugies","item-theme-naturalisation-et-le-mariage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26167,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26149\/revisions\/26167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citizenshiprightsafrica.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}